


Oh, What A Night

by redchanks



Category: La La Land (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, First Person, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 07:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13185234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redchanks/pseuds/redchanks
Summary: It's 1973, and at their high school reunion, Seb and Mia reconnect for one last night.





	Oh, What A Night

_Oh, what a night_

_Late December back in ’63_  
_What a very special time for me_  
_As I remember, what a night_

Ten years to the moment I attended senior homecoming, I strolled into my high school reunion. The class of ’63. Girls with slim waists and swishing skirts were now swollen and swaddled in maternity clothes. The boys who had once driven the shining chrome chariots on which they used to perch and flirt, now pinched and slapped their thinning skin. The world no longer swarmed with the psychedelics of our politics, our power, our passion; the world was grey with concrete offices and ill-fitting suits, and our faces were ghostly grey to match.

The clock chimed seven. 

 _Oh I,_  
_I got a funny feeling when she walked in the room_  
_Hey, my,_  
_As I recall it ended much too soon_

The air shifted, imbued with the scent of the hair that used to rest on my collar. She was here, that same auburn halo bobbing against the artificial lights. She stared at me for a brief, endless moment, until her laugh spilled from her lips in pure surprise.

‘Seb!’ Gliding over to me, she graced my cheek with her gentle fingers. ‘It’s absolutely wonderful to see you.’

Her voice poured over me, resting in thick drapes on my skin like a plush fur coat. All my own could mutter was some unintelligible mash of words. She laughed again, the joy of it bubbling in the space between us.

‘Come on!’ she faux-whispered, with an air of dark seduction. ‘Dance with me.’

 _Oh, what a night_  
_Hypnotising, mesmerising me_  
_She was everything I dreamed she’d be_  
_Sweet surrender, what a night_

Her dress spun and its light blurred the room around us. Breathing her in, I could no longer smell cigarette smoke and gym kit and two-for-one pizza; the world was sunrise, filtered through cotton sheets, was her forehead on mine in the fading sunset, was two mismatched hands holding each other against the dark. Another twist made it our own homecoming, and she wore a crown whose plastic sparkles dwindled next to my ardent love. Where could the next move take us? For we were alone in the shifting coloured lights, and the world could never again come into focus.

The clock struck eight.

She stopped. Her dress fluttered against her knees, until it lay listless.

‘Goodness!’ Her laugh, again, tortuous, gorgeous. ‘I haven’t even spoken to anyone else.’

‘Do you really want to?’ My own voice was one I barely recognised. 

‘Not really.’ She smiled. ‘You’re the only one for me.’

The world encroached upon us, contracting, restricting, whistling in our ears. If I didn’t seize this moment to remove her from its snare, she would be lost to the mere mortals who couldn’t even comprehend her power. All I had to do was be brave.

‘Let’s go for a drive.’ I caught my voice, rich and dripping with hope. ‘To that hill where we always used to go, so we could see the city lights.’

For a moment, I thought I’d lost her, in the small, confused crinkle of her brow. The crinkle unraveled, and the looseness spread over her face into a sheath of relaxed ease.

‘Sure. Lead the way.’

***

 _And I felt a rush like a rolling ball of thunder_  
_Spinning my head around and taking my body under_  
_Oh, what a night!_

The city lights swirled over her skin, imbuing her with vermillion and violet and midnight velvet. Her milky arms swam through the silky air, and its thickness swallowed our sounds, a silent dome of peace. I could see her, pencil tucked behind her ear, writing her diary in the snap of a winter’s morning. I could see her, smiling through crumbs, nibbling at misshapen birthday cake on a spring afternoon. I could see her, ripping up my record cards at the end of summer semester, so that the white flakes swirled like snow through the heady summer’s evening, and all the way, in every time and permutation, our laughter soared above the dome and the lights and the car and escaped into every corner of the world.

***

We swigged champagne on the hillside, hiccuping between breaths, giggling at ourselves, and repeating the cycle.

‘Do you remember the necklace I got you for homecoming?’ I asked through fizzing chuckles.

‘Of course! The timepiece on the gold chain.’ A kind of wistful melancholy flittered across her eyes. ‘It was so beautiful. But about a week into college, the chain snapped, and the glass shattered.’ She paused for a moment, as though she’d said too much. ‘I kept it, though, until the mechanism stopped, and it was just an ornament. I think I still have it, somewhere.’

  
‘I could get you another one.’ She bristled. The words stained the air, hanging, lingering. She smiled anyway, but with less certainty.

‘You can’t try to repeat the past. You just have to revel in the memories.’

Who said you can’t go back? If I could reach out and cup her pointed chin, raise her lovely mouth to mine, I knew her eyes would close and her lips would open in slow motion, just as they did that very first night. How could I have forgotten how much I loved her? If I could only reach out, all these years would melt away…

A glint. Her hand, heavy with that platinum ring. That ring which shone so defiantly, maliciously, confronting me.

 _Why’d it take so long to see the light?_  
_Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right_  
_What a lady, what a night_

A clock rang out for nine.

‘Is that the time?’ Her voice sprang, and its dynamism dragged me out of my reverie. ‘I have to get back- it’s already past Kathy’s bedtime, I’ll bet she’s crying for me.’

‘K-Kathy?’ I knew, of course.

‘My daughter.’ She knew, too, in those sympathetic eyes. She always was too kind.

I struggled for anything to do, to say. We couldn’t leave it like this, in this awkward, hesitant, nothingness, not when we had been so close to something beautiful.

Her lips graced against my cheek, just for a moment, just for a breath. I could feel her eyelashes tingle against my skin, her hair brushing against my neck. She pulled away.

‘Goodbye, Seb.’

***

I didn’t know if I should laugh, or cry, or both. I simply sat. I sat until the wetness of my cheek evaporated into the air. I sat until the gold inside my blood faded to dull scarlet. I sat until the mythos of the evening deconstructed all around me, until she was simply a girl I used to know.

I had loved her, once, but that love belonged to a young hopeful, not the man I was now. So I let the champagne flow from the bottle, running down the hillside until it rushed into a river, a tide, a monument to youth.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as an assignment for class- a work on the theme of 'Reunion', incorporating elements of 'The Great Gatsby' (thematic and/or stylistic) and it ended up giving me major La La Land vibes! What do you guys think?


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